Listowel Connection

This blog is a personal take on Listowel, Co. Kerry. I am writing for anyone anywhere with a Listowel connection but especially for sons and daughters of Listowel who find themselves far from home. Contact me at listowelconnection@gmail.com

Tag: Billy McSweeney Page 2 of 3

WW1survivor, John Moore, Café Hanna , Young Adult Bookfest 2018 and Ballydonoghue Parish Magazine

By

On November 19, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo: Jim MacSweeney

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A Soldier of the Great War and many other wars as well (and with a Listowel connection)



On the centenary of Armistice Day, Tom Dillon, who is our local war expert, gave an entertaining and educational talk on some local aspects of WW1.

Present at that lecture was another local historian, Martin Moore. Martin had contributed some of his family memorabilia to the exhibition that accompanied the talk. On Facebook I found that he had talked to his dad on Armistice Day about the family hero of the war.

Here is what Martin wrote on Nov. 11 2018

“First World War ended 100 years today, one of the greatest conflicts of humankind. This was remembered tonight at a most dignified event organised by historian Tom Dillon and hosted by Cara. It was nice to sit down with my dad who is nearly ninety years. His uncle John served with the New Zealand forces in those eventful years ..from Gallipoli, Egypt and France. He survived the War even though wounded in 1917. One of the lucky ones. John Moore’s army life brought him to the 5 Continents and he was decorated by the King of Serbia along the way!! 

Remembered on this day by his family”

Martin Moore’s picture of his father, Michael holding photographs and medals of his uncle, John.

It sounds to me like there is material for another history talk in that man’s life. 


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Lovely Old Photo


(Taken by Johnny Hannon R.I.P.)


I’m sure there are people who immediately recognise these ladies.

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Listowel Food Fair 2018



Listowel Food Fair is going from strength to strength. This year I had lunch for the over 50s in Allos, brunch in Café Hanna, a demonstration of Lithuanian cooking in Scribes, the food trail to Jumbos, The Listowel Arms, John B.’s and Lizzies and on Sunday I enjoyed the craft and food market. I only got to a faction of the many events organised for this year’s event.

If you like getting dressed up, there was a gala dinner in The Listowel Arms with a kind of Oscars of the food world. There was a grand opening too and all kinds of talks and demonstrations. If you missed it this year be sure to put it on your list of marvellous festivals in Listowel for 2019.

I met Carol and Phil at the brunch in John R.’s Café Hanna.

Cliona McKenna was my dining companion.

This was the super menu. We both had the eggs Benedict and pancakes, me blueberries, she red velvet.

Here is Billy McSweeney telling me yet another tale.

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Listowel Writers’ Week Young Adult Bookfest 2018

This marvellous one day event began life a s part of Listowel Writers’ Week June festival. The timing was not ideal for secondary school students who were usually doing end of year exams at this time. It was decided to change the date and this new stand -alone one day event took place for the first time in 2017. It was such a success that this year’s event sold out in jig time.

On November 16 2018 over 800 secondary school pupils, mostly Transition Year and Fifth Year students gathered in Listowel Community Centre for a feast of educational and entertainment.

Máire Logue is seen here commissioning two of the outdoor volunteers for their traffic duties. As you can appreciate buses and cars had to be marshalled into position to make sure everyone got to the venue safely and on time.

John Kelliher took this photo of the outdoor crew, Jim Dunn, Mike Lynch, Rose Wall and Tom Dillon. They did a great job in fairly showery and cold conditions.

 Liz and Elma were busy directing the audience to their allocated seats.

Seán McCarthy and Joanna O’Flynn helped early arrivals to take a selfie.

 Eilish Wren and Mairead Costelloe were busy meeting and greeting.

Rhona Tarrant was MC for the day. Here she is looking over her notes on the running order.

Teachers, Mary Twomey and Gerard Tarrant were enjoying the day.

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Ballydonoghue Parish Magazine 2018









Saturday morning November 17 2018 and Eason Listowel gets its first drop of Ballydonoghue Parish Magazines



The people behind this magazine have brought us another cracker. Parish magazines are becoming a rarity. It’s hard to find dedicated people to collect the stories, take the photographs, edit, proofread and lay out the journal. And then they have to launch and distribute it. Its a mammoth task. I take my hat off to the great people who keep Ballydonoghue Parish going year after year.

Each year’s publication is eagerly awaited by the Lisselton diaspora. Postage charges have gone through the roof and it means that to buy a magazine and post it is now costs the bones of €30. I beg you to continue sending it. It means a lot to people missing home.

I caught up with the delivery detail again as they made their drop in Flavin’s of Church Street.

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+ R.I.P.  Weeshie Fogarty+




Photo: Radio Kerry

Billy MacSweeney Remembers, Leahy’s Corner, and a Listowel Connection to Ireland’s Fittest Family

By

On October 24, 2018

In Uncategorized

A nun and a church…images of Listowel Town Square

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Leahy’s Corner



Before it was Leahy’s it was O’Callaghan’s and it was the first slated house in The Square, Vincent Carmody told me.

Now a trip down memory lane, memories evoked by photos of Leahy’s Corner.

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Billy MacSweeney Remembers the Listowel of his Youth

“Ag dul siar ar m’aistear le solas mo chroí”

This corner of The Square is known locally as Leahy’s Corner. Billy MacSweeney remembers it well as it was when he was a boy growing up in Listowel

When I was a boy it was normal for the children of the town to wander throughout not only the countryside but also the town. I was an 
inveterate wanderer. Listowel was a very safe place to grow up – safe 
that is from everything but climbing and falling out of trees, falling 
into the river Feale when fishing or being poisoned by the things we dug 
up or picked from the hedgerows to eat. We also had to beware of the 
bull in Foley’s field along the banks of the river when heading for the 
‘Diving Board’, the ‘Rocks’ or the ‘Falls’ to enjoy the swimming. We 
accepted that if we did something wrong we were punished by a ‘clip 
around the ear’ from the nearest adult and this was accepted as right 
and proper by all other parents of the area. You learned never to 
complain at home because if you did another ‘clip’ was administered 
immediately by your parents. You thus learned right from wrong.   A real 
Huckleberry Finn existence!

We would ‘attach’ ourselves to adults when they were doing interesting 
things. In particular I remember Jack Leahy who lived at the corner of 
the ‘Big Square’. Jack had a horse and cart that he used to collect 
gravel from the banks of the Feale for local builders. He had to ford 
the river with the horse and cart to access the bends in the river where 
the gravel collected. I used jump up next to Jack and go with him on 
these adventures and he always had a spare shovel on board so that I 
could give a hand. What fascinated me in the evenings is that he would 
unhitch the horse from the cart in front of his shop and lead the horse 
through the front door at the side of the shop, through the hallway, 
into the stable at the back. I remember Jack as a caring and gentle man. 
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam or ‘ Ar ḋeis Dé go raiḃ a anam,  as it was then.

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Cousins at a wedding


I met Junior Griffin at the hotel on the day after a family wedding. He was saying goodbye to his Sharry nephews, Michael and Paul.  Michael is based in Coventry and Paul is in Singapore. To my delight they revealed that they are fans of Listowel connection.


Griffins and Sharrys in Listowel Town Square on Sunday October15 2018

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Listowel’s Fittest Family?




Roibeard Pierse and family are taking part in the TV Show Ireland’s Fittest Family.

All of Listowel is behind this brave young crew.

Listowel Library, a piece of doggerel, a funny picture and a great night out on February 27 2018

By

On March 1, 2018

In Uncategorized

Photo: Ita Hannon

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More Library Memories from Billy McSweeney

Billy has shared some more of his family and library memories with us.

Here is what he wrote;
Attached please find a copy of a brochure issued in 1995 about the

opening of the ‘New’ Kerry Co Council Branch Library. You can see that

‘Fake News’ about the burning down of the original Library in the Bridge

Road was still being spread in 1995.



I also include a photograph of my mother Maisie with my Grandparents Ned

and Annie Gleeson (nee Carmody). Annie was the very first Librarian in

the Bridge Road. She was later also Town Clerk.



You may not know that the top floor of the Church St Library was used

extensively as an infant classroom for the National School ; the teacher

was Mrs Scanlon (nee Pierce) from Market St. It was also occasionally

used for putting on ‘Entertainments’ by an adventurous group of locals

which, to my knowledge, included John B. Keane, his brother Eamon (‘The

Joker’) the actor and the Stack brothers of William St, among others.

The members of this group were the forerunners of the ‘Tom Doodle

Society’ of later fame.



Kind Regards,



Billy McSweeney




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Thunder and Lightning Author unknown

The thunder crashed

The lightning flashed

And all the world was shaken;

The little pig curled up his tail

And ran to save his bacon.

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Humour from the late Fr. Pat Moore

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Mill Lane Store has moved


from here



to here


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Night out with the Writers’ Week gang

We had a great team night out for nibbles in Christy’s and the Johnny Cash tribute concert in St. Johns.

Here are a few pictures of the local groupies.

Marie, Jim and Liz

Rose and Seán

Seán with the newly elected head of Kerry Vintners’ Association, Christy Walsh

We were not the only posse of Johnny Cash afictionados in the theatre. The ladies below are from Ballybunion.

I sat beside these lovely enthusiastic music fans who travelled from further afield to enjoy the show and enjoy it they did.

Fr. Pat Moore remembered, Basketball in the 1980s and Jack Flavin has passed away

By

On February 28, 2018

In Uncategorized


Photo: Chris Grayson

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After we are gone


I was clearing out my inbox when I made the discovery. I came across an old notification from WordPress that Fr. Pat Moore had posted a new blog. It was the lovely piece that I have reprinted below. As soon as I read it I wanted to read more so I went to the his website and ……

you guessed it…..all gone.

It is apt that this essay is about birth, death and regrowth. Enjoy it.

There has been wonderful moonlight these last few nights. Go to the window in a darkened moonlight night and you see a shadowy reality outside, then turn on the light in the room and the world outside becomes totally dark. I remember John Moriarty making the point that in the same way we can be looking for answers to questions with the wrong search lights. If I want to see the fox passing in the night from my window,the light on in room won’t help. As John said,”It is with that that eclipses God that I seek God .” But God isn’t the fox that passes in the night!

Jim Kennelly tells me that when a kitten is born it’s blind for nine days. In the same way there are inside of all of us, huge awakenings. It’s as if we’re here to wake up as we begin to realise why we are on the planet at all. So that might be why we are here at all. We have to wake up from waking as Jim always says. “When your heart speaks,take notes.”

Over fifty years ago alot of neighbours around here visited the friendly garden centre in Beale, Hannons, where famously they ‘sell every blooming thing.” The Hannon family introduced the countryside to the Asian plant  cordyline. Lots of these plants started to appear down Littor Road. There was one planted in our front garden. It grew over six feet high. Then when we got severe cold weather four years ago alot of the cordyline died, including the one in our garden. This spring when we cleared away the growth seven new trees have grown and are thriving. From the death of the old plant, new life, seven new plants! Is it any wonder Jesus used the image of the seed dying in the earth and from that comes forth new life when he explained the mystery of life?  

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Correcting the Tiger  by John Gardner


The tiger is a perfect saint

As long as you respect him:

But if he happens to say ain’t,

You’d better not correct him.

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Basketball  in Pres in the 1980s


If you are in this photo, please remember that we are still looking for reminiscences from the 1980s for our Pres. commemorative book.

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Another Familiar Face gone from Church Street




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Turf Shed Theatre


Vincent Carmody remembers a time when every boy in Listowel was a performer, an actor or a scriptwriter.


I would assume that Billy McSweeney is right, as Eamon Keane used usually take his walk up and down the Bridge Road and around Gurtinard. His memory of Turf Shed Theatre was identically repeated in most backways of the town. We in Pound Lane had a thriving theatre group, with plays and concerts being regularly performed in our back shed. One memory is of my sister Nora, having been sent out to get turf, stopped a performance which was in full flow, then proceeded to tear up the stage which we had built  on what turf  was left in the shed. The show had to be abandoned. As the paying customers were leaving, my neighbour and friend, Liam Nolan, lifted a clenched fist as Nora was leaving with her turf and shouted, ‘The Stage will never Die’, to which Nora replied, ‘Its dead now’.




A Robin, Beef Tea by John B. Keane and Fr. Danny Long and Maisie McSweeney

By

On February 27, 2018

In Uncategorized

Closeup of a Robin


Photo: Ita Hannon

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Garden of Europe Update



This corner of our lovely town is looking very bare these days.


signs of spring

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A Fruity Poem  by William Cole  (from For Laughing Out Loud)



I thought I’d win the spelling bee

And get right to the top.

But I started to spell “banana”,

And I didn’t know when to stop.

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Bridge Road


This is the old Neodata site. It looks like it is going to be a car park, for the foreseeable future anyway.





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Beef Tea  (concluded)


by John B. Keane


….There was another
man in the street at the time, a notorious rogue albeit a likeable enough
fellow. He was greatly addicted to all forms of intoxicating drink and as is
the case with such people he often found himself with an insatiable desire for
meat. He would insist, on his arrival home from the public house, that his wife
did not look at all well. As it happened, she was something of a hypochondriac
and liked to hear such things.

“I haven’t been
feeling well all day,” she would agree.

“What you need,”
he would say,” is a nice mug of beef tea. If you have a shilling or two handy
I’ll go down and knock up the butcher and get a pound of the finest round.”

All beef tea
consisted of, by the way, was the water in which the beef was boiled.  As soon as she started to partake of the beef
tea our friend would start to partake of the beef. It was a good ruse and it
kept both of them in good health for many a year.

Nowadays there is
no talk of beef tea and more’s the pity because I might not be here at all only
for it. There were occasions when it was supposed to have brought people back
from the very mouth of the grave. Under no circumstances was the fat of beef to
be used. A nice lean cut off the round was the very man for the job.

People may look
askance at it now but in my boyhood it was held in reserve to the very end much
like a crack battalion in time of battle. Then when all seemed lost the beef
tea like the battalion would be unleashed on the enemy, the battalion upon the
opposing army and the beef tea upon the harbingers of human extinction.

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Fr. Danny Long and Maisie McSweeney


Billy McSweeney writes;


Fr Danny Long was President of St. Michael’s College from Sept 1954. I
remember him fondly, not only because he was a relief to all the
students from his predecessor, but also because he had a sharp sense of
humour. His arrival at St. Mike’s on my first year definitely saved me
from an ‘uncomfortable’ 6 years.

In my memory we have a story of when Danny Long visited the Library and
asked my mother for ‘Dr Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak. This was out new at
the time and was all the rage. There was a long queue of borrowers
waiting their turn to read it.

Danny was insistent that she put him at the head of the queue, which she
rejected and refused to do as it would be unfair! She told him so!

“You know that I could turn you into a goat!” says Danny. (To non-native
Listowel readers this was a well-known piseog of old!)

“BeGod Father, if you do I’ll puck you,” was the reply.

He had met his match!

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